Dan Knight
- 2001.08.08
I am very ignorant when it comes to the Mac and hope I have
directed this to the proper person. Any help you or the others
could give in steering me in the right direction would be greatly
appreciated.
My brother purchased a Quadra
650 in late '93 and used it for six years. During that time I
know he made upgrades (System 7.5), added many accessories (fax
modem, printer, port juggler, paper port), and installed various
software - all of which I am trying to figure out since I acquired
it after his death last year. It seemed to have such capability
that I would like to be able to utilize all of this myself.
The problem I am having is when I try to open any of the
software, even the operating system items, there seems to be some
aspect missing on the hard drive that prevents me accessing it and
utilizing the programs. What I would like to do is start fresh by
reinstalling the 7.5 upgrade CDs and adding the additional software
as I am ready to learn it. Unfortunately, when I insert a CD, the
computer does not recognize that there is a CD inserted and does
not bring up an icon on the desktop. The computer has a AppleCD
300i CD-ROM and I get a message to be sure at least one CD-ROM
drive is connected and restart your Mac. My questions are:
- How can I check this?
- Do I need to install a new CD-ROM? If so, where can I find one
that is compatible and about how much will it cost?
- How can I completely clean up the hard drive and start over? I
have the upgrade system disks (CD) but not the original operating
system disks. Or is it possible that the 7.5 are what it was
originally equipped with?
- What do you recommend as the best course of action? As I've
stated, I'd really like to be able to use all of this but am not
willing to spend as much as it would cost for a new computer.
Thank you so much for your time and any help you can give me. It
will be greatly appreciated. I was so glad to find this site.
The solution could be as easy as inserting the CD-ROM and then
restarting the computer while holding down the C key on the
keyboard. Doing this instructs the Quadra (and more recent models)
to boot from CD-ROM instead of the installed hard drive.
Failing that, the most common culprit is a loose SCSI cable
inside the computer - but only if someone has been inside the case
since the last time it worked. If someone has fiddled around inside
the computer, open it up and make sure the wide ribbon cable is
tightly seated both on the motherboard and on the CD-ROM drive.
Replacing the CD-ROM
If that's not the problem, it's very likely that the CD-ROM
drive has given up the ghost. You'll need to replace it, and you
have three options:
- An Apple CD-ROM drive.
- A Sony CD-ROM drive.
- A third-party CD-ROM drive.
Used Apple drives are often available on eBay,
and you may be able to find unused ones from various dealers. With
Apple drives you know they're 100% compatible.
Except for Sony, third-party drives may be bootable (be sure to
check before investing) but will almost always require third-party
software to access the CD-ROM when running from the hard drive.
I've gone this route three times in the past five years and
generally recommend against it.
My personal choice with older Macs and clones (like my SuperMac)
is Sony drives, which are compatible with Apple's drivers and can
also boot the Mac. These tend to be available at yesterday's speeds
(4x, 8x) at very affordable prices - sometimes under $20.
If you plan on using the CD-ROM heavily, look into an 8x or 12x
mechanism. If you'll mostly use it to install software and maybe
play CDs, a 4x is twice as fast as the CD300i inside the Quadra. It
will also save you money.
Installing the System
Once you have a working CD-ROM drive, you should be able to boot
directly from the System 7.5 CD by holding down the C key while
starting the computer. The next question is whether you want to
completely wipe the hard drive or not.
My recommendation is that you not wipe the hard drive unless you
are sure you have the software for all the peripherals, especially
non-Apple products like the fax modem and scanner. Remember that
formatting the hard drive will erase everything on it - the system,
the drivers, the preferences, the software, and the documents.
If that's what you want to do, find the Drive Setup utility on
the System CD and use it to format or initialize the hard drive.
Then double-click the System Installer and give the Quadra about 30
minutes to complete the job.
If you choose not to wipe the hard drive, you will want to do a
"clean install" of the operating system. It's been at least 8
months since I've installed System 7.5, and I don't recall if
"clean install" is a standard option or not. It if isn't, quit the
installer, hold down the option key, and relaunch it. On most
versions of the installer that don't normally show a clean install
option, launching with the option key held down give you the option
of a clean install.
What a clean install does is ignore the old System Folder and
create a brand new system installation. The old System Folder is
renamed and all the files are retained. This makes it possible to
pull out drivers, preferences, and other files from the old System
Folder and move them to the new one. (There's a great program
called Clean-Install Assistant that
automates the process.)
Once you have System 7.5 installed, I recommend you get the
Quadra connected to the Internet and download System 7.5.3 and the
System 7.5.5 update from Apple's site.
Welcome to the world of the Macintosh.
